Cujo said:
Good answer on the home invasion question Sgtmac. As far as gun disarms, I have seen alot of differant moves taught. The ones that I teach vary depending on how close the person is to you, his location in ref. to your position ie. 12:00 o'clock, 6:00 o'clock etc. and where the weapon is pointed. I was first taught slapping moves, but found these to be lacking. A slapping move is great, IF it works. Now I mostly teach weapon grabs that involve moving the gun out of line with my body. An example would be grabbing the barrel of the gun with my left hand and rotating it left (if he was right handed) and grabbing the wrist with my right hand. They did teach at an earlier time to attempt to disarm or control with one hand, and draw your weapon with the other, but this has been found to be lacking shall we say. Rememeber this. Guns kill you by causing you to bleed to death or taking out a vital organ. In the movies you see people shot with a firearm and they just drop, that is a bunch of **** in general. NEVER expect that if you shoot someone, that they will just drop. Alot of cops have been killed making that assumption. They used to teach the old "double tap", draw and fire two rounds center mass. Now we teach to fire until the action that caused you to fire in the first place ceases. This is why you will see leo's firing 5 plus rounds into a subject. ANY time you shoot at someone, even once, you are stating that you have the right under law to use deadly force. 1 bullet or five, he is just as dead. Check with your local laws as they aply to your area, I am speaking of the laws that appy to my area. "better judged by 12 than carried by six."
Pax Cujo
I prefer having both hands on the gun. Remember, unless you compeletely remove the gun from his grasp, a struggle is going to ensue. This always applies if you are unarmed. If you are armed, the other option is to sweep the gun off line, while simultaneously drawing yours. Keep in mind, however, that you had better be able to clear leather fast, as he will be bringing his gun back on line EXTREMELY fast.
In addition, always practice BOTH moving the gun out of line of your body, and moving your body out of line of the gun, to minimize the amount of time you are in line with the barrel. Remember, keeping the barrel from interesecting your body is key. The gun is only dangerous when the barrel can be brought in line with YOU.
Also, never underestimate hitting the magazing release on a semi-automatic handgun. On some semi-autos, Smith and Wesson's come to mind, removing the magazine will make the gun inoperable, and will prevent the operator from discharging the round in the chamber.
At the very least, however, it will reduce the number of rounds available to the operator to just 1. If that discharges, the firearm is empty. Also, grabbing the slide of the firearm and holding it tight will cause it to only fire one round, and will prevent it from cycling.
On double action revolvers, you can prevent the gun from firing by grabbing the cylinder and preventing it from turning. If the cylinder won't turn, the operator will not able to actuate the double action trigger, and it will not fire. Caveat, this does not apply on a single action revolver where the hammer has been pulled back or a double action in the same position. However, understanding this principle can prevent a follow up shot even if the gun started in that same position.
I am familiar with an incident where a struggle ensued over a gun, and the defender placed his thumb between the hammer of the revolver and the firing pin. This prevented the firearm from discharging while he managed to remove the gun from the grasp of the operator. The struggle was prosecuted in an extremely violent manner by the defender, which is how you will have to do it. (He removed the gun from the would-be shooters grasp, then preceeded to grab him by the hair of the head and ram the back of his head in to an exposed nail sticking out of the wall...not fatal, but very painful). There was a lot of biting and clawing in this struggle, which is what you should expect.
Also, long guns are much more powerful, but much easier to disarm at close range. If you can get your body past the barrel, you can tie the firearm up so that it is useless against you. Practice this with a broom or long stick. Once you have moved your body toward the operator, past the barrell, you can practice levering the long-gun out of the operators hands.
